Love your enemies
An enemy is someone who has hurt me, maybe even hates me, who shows his unkindness to me. But notice that we, in our perversity, sometimes consider as our enemy someone whom we have wronged. The psychological mechanism is simple: you have hurt this man, and to drown out your remorse, you begin to think that he is a bad person, not worthy of your kindness. Regarding such a situation, "love your enemies" means: come to your senses, acknowledge your guilt, repair the wrong, ask for forgiveness, let your mutual relations become normal.
What does Christ mean "love your enemies" in relation to true enemies, those who have hurt us, and maybe even hate us? We are certainly not ordered by the Lord Jesus to meekly agree to harm. Instead, he commands us to remember that our enemy is first and foremost a human, and if he is a person, it means that God loves him and wants to lead him to eternal life. That is why the Lord Jesus tells us to pray for our enemies. Because if he acts unfairly, it is probably because he is lost in life and does not even know what a man lives in this world for.
The Lord Jesus himself left us the supreme example of prayer for our enemies. It was not about the people who had hurt Him at one time. He prays for his own murderers and he prayed when they were killing him. His prayer is full of truth. The Lord Jesus does not underestimate the harm they do to Him. They are doing him excruciatingly painful and most unfair harm - and this fact is not hidden by Jesus. However, he cares about the good of these people. He also sees that these unfortunates are not fully aware of the enormity of the evil they are doing. That is why he stands above the terrible evil that comes to him from their hand and prays for them: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
This prayer of the Lord Jesus is the highest example of the love of enemies. Deacon Stephen prayed in a very similar way for those who stoned him:
"Lord, do not hold this sin against them" - these were Stephen's last words on this earth. The love of enemies is a special imitation of God's love. Because it is God who always thinks about our good, also when we behave like His enemies.
Until Tomorrow